Category Archives: breakfast

Okay, so maybe The French Laundry Garden is a bit more spacious and they have incredible chefs creating magnificent food for all 3 restaurants, but we are really proud of our own Napa Garden, compliments of Toni’s backyard with Rick’s assistance (our own Mr. Home Improvement/Contractor/WineMaker/now Gardener), who are graciously permitting us to grow so many things remotely and to come and pick what we need once a week. From green onions, to tomatoes, peppers, melons, and so much more.

Boy are we happy campers tonight as we pulled away with all these luscious tomatoes! What shall we do, what shall we do?

Interested in coming to visit Napa over Labor day weekend. Come stay with us here at The Inn On First! We have rooms available for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Come enjoy our delicious homemade breakfasts each morning, or perhaps a Wine Tour with Jamie. We’re here to help make your visit to the Napa Valley all that it can be!

As a foodie-destination spot in the Napa Valley, The Inn On First takes great pride in obtaining fresh and organic ingredients wherever we can. So, when our friend and contractor, Rick Leonard, invited us over to a friend’s house (Tony) to pick tomatoes, we jumped at the chance.

Fragrant as you picked them off the vine, some of them opening upon touch, begging to be eaten right away. We did! Sugar sweet, like candy. Cherry tomatoes, early girls, mortgage busters, and more. With more on the way she (Tony) made it clear we were welcome to return again.

So in the next few weeks expect to see them on the menu: from creamy, roasted tomato soup with grilled cheese croutons, to focaccia stuffed with summer tomatoes and mozzarella.

The Inn On First, your favorite romantic Bed and Breakfast Inn in Napa, was happy to be a part of DoNapa.com’s efforts to showcase culinary talent in the City of Napa. As part of their chef’s series they asked to film Chef Jim Gunther prepare one of his 120 breakfast creations, the Corndog Omelet.

Breakfast here at The Inn on First, a luxury bed and breakfast inn in Napa, is a big deal. I really appreciated a recent guest review on TripAdvisor that stated that B&B really stood for “Best Breakfast”. Thank you! Currently I am on breakfast 121: Cheese Fritters.

It started with Fondue. I love breakfast Fondue: yes that is one of the 121 breakfast recipes (served with quail eggs, roasted potatoes, and roasted and buttered bread cubes- homemade bread, of course).

I was thinking about fondue and remembered how my brother Andrew loved fried cheese when he was a child. I wondered it I could create something similar, with a fritter, where the cheese would come oozing out as you cut it open and yet retain the crustiness of fried cheese that you get in a pan. After some experimentation with eggs and flour, I found what I wanted. I could use a small round of bread as the base, create a cheese paste mixture with gruyere, cheddar, and pepper jack cheese, egg and flour to be scooped on top, and then deep fried until everything was crusty on the outside and oozy, delicious on the inside.

Next came the decision about what type of egg to serve: poached, fried, scrambled. Poached seemed like the obvious choice so that the yolk and whites could easily be mixed into the melted cheese on the plate.

I also wanted more flavor infused into the dish and so I added basil oil. I realized I can play with infused oils over the next few years and try a wide combination of cheese flavors with different oils.

Lastly, I wanted something to finish off the dish. Homemade toasted bread to finish wiping up the cheese from the plate, and homemade jam to finish with any leftover toasted bread.

Thus, Cheese Fritters with Poached Eggs, Basil Oil, homemade toasted bread with homemade jam was created. This is going to be a delightful addition to my winter menu.

I know. We’ve read about it for years: breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day. So here at The Inn On First, a luxury Napa bed and breakfast inn, we take it seriously. Today we have over 120 recipes that we utilize over the course of one year. We keep track of when you visit, what you eat for breakfast, and ensure you don’t get served the same dish again. It is our way of keeping you excited for what is about to be presented to you each morning, no matter how often you visit us.
It is also a way for Chef Jim Gunther not to get bored or complacent. His goal is to develop a minimum of 250 recipes before he retires. He’s hoping for another ten years to work at it and thinks he can achieve that goal. For Jim, it is a very Zen-like experience- you eat, you enjoy, you let it go. Something new is coming your way the next time. ”Knowing you get to eat this breakfast but once helps the guest to savor what is present to them today,” Jim stated. ”And in case you didn’t really enjoy that particular breakfast,” he added playfully, “you’ll never see it again.”
So what are some of the more recent creations that have come out of The Inn On First’s kitchen? Cheese Consomme with Roasted Potatoes and Poached Egg, Corndog omelets, Argentinian Arepas with Eggs in Chipotle Cream Sauce, Macaroni and Cheese, and S’mores French Toast are a few of the items you can expect to enjoy this year. The key to the inn’s success? Everything is made from scratch: from macaroni noodles, to the graham cracker bread Jim created for French Toast. Using fresh, organic, and locally grown ingredients, the focus is on cooking seasonally and creating recipes that have “comfort food” in mind.